Cynthia W. Smith
Cynthia Smith, FASLA, is a principal at Halvorson Design, a Boston-based design firm providing landscape-architectural and urban design services. Her career has focused on the design of public-realm spaces, including urban and waterfront parks and plazas, brownfield sites, streetscapes, and academic campus landscapes. Her notable projects include the Leventhal Park at Post Office Square; MIT’s Sloan School of Management campus landscapes; Finnegan Park along the Neponset River; and the Nashua Street Park and New Riverside Park along the Charles River. Her recent work in Cambridge includes Western Avenue and River Street ‘Complete Streets’ reconstructions and the redesign of Harvard Square Plaza.
An active member of the design community, Ms. Smith serves on several boards, including the board of directors for the Hubbard Educational Trust, a foundation promoting the profession of landscape architecture through the funding of published works in the field; the board of overseers for Boston Architectural College; and the City of Cambridge Committee on Public Planting. She served as president of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (2001–2002) and was elected to the Council of Fellows by the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2012.
Statement: I had the fortune of hearing Cornelia Hahn Oberlander speak about her work in collaboration with Arthur Erickson at Robson Square in Vancouver in the early 1980s. This spectacular design juxtaposed a lush, multi-tiered landscape roof garden with Modernist stairs and plaza spaces. It had a uniquely Western Canadian vernacular but was truly Modernist in its form. As a recent graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design who had also studied in the Pacific Northwest, I found Cornelia’s landscape work compelling. Looking back on my 40-year career practicing as a landscape architect in Boston, first at Sasaki and SWA, and then with Halvorson Design, I am struck by Cornelia’s importance as a role model to many of us in the profession. She has helped to pave the way for generations of women landscape architects. Our donation is in support of the Oberlander Prize and in recognition of our talented group of women landscape architects here at Halvorson Design. May you all find your design passion, speak up, and be heard!